SPM FEED MILL & PIG FARM: Thailand

Thailand offers many opportunities for pig farmers, but it takes that extra step to profit from it. At SPM Feed Mill & Pig Farm, a way has been found to combine making money with care for the environment. And there's more, Vincent ter Beek, editor of Pig Progress, found out.

Read more about this farm visit in Pig Progress 27.04.

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SPM Feedmill is located near the city of Ratchaburi, about 1.5 hour’s drive west of the Thai capital Bangkok.

Founder and managing director is Dr Somchai Nitikanchana, age 59. He has been leading the company since 1990, although it is nowadays owned by his children.

He started out with a feed mill and a pig production facility and grew out to become one of the larger independent feed and pork companies. Main driver for him is to combine profitable production with environmentally friendly production.

Total capacity is 200,000 tonnes of feed per year. About 50% is sold externally, and the other 50% is used on own farms. In addition, his farms are populated by 16,000 sows, producing 300,000 finishers annually.

Pigs are grown on multisite systems in two zones in the province. One of these zones approximately 50 km away, the other multisite production facility can be found in the surroundings of the feed mill. Each zone has its own breeding and growing facility – as well as a couple of finisher farms.

Moving to the finisher site around the feed mill, having 22 buildings, it can be seen that manure is re-used in various ways – for instance to grow bananas right next to the finisher buildings.

In addition, slurry is sun-dried…

– and used as fertiliser.

Needless to say, slurry is also used for producing biogas.

Generators turn the biogas into energy.

A large water pool is located close to the finisher site, for use for the pigs’ consumption.

At a different location, the grower barns can be found. Their houses, just like the finishers’, are equipped with evaporative ventilation.

Directly adjacent to the feed mill, the breeding facilities can be found. Located next to rice fields...

…or small lakes, the views are great.

On average 22-24 piglets are weaned per sow per year. Piglets are weaned at 24-26 days.

Average daily gain of the finishers (20-100 kg) eventually amounts to 700 g/day. They are sold to a broker to go for slaughter at 100-105 kg liveweight.

A continuous process is going on to replace old stables by novel ones.

This older type of building now is used for older multiparous sows, waiting to go to the slaughterhouse.

Their manure is caught at the bottom as the animals themselves are living on an elevated level.

Last but not least – even here, Dr Somchai has been considering the environment. The latest project, widely reported on in the Thai media, includes the placement of solar panels on the roof.

The energy is transformed into heat by this turbine, and this is used...

...to keep the piglets warm!

Other types of vegetables are also grown on the site. Since the farm complexes have about 100,000 finisher places, quite some slurry is available for these goals.

Future projects will also include the cultivation of palm trees for palm oil production.

These are all projects of the farm workers themselves. Once their own work in the pig farm is ready, they can reap and use the result from their work in the vegetable garden. In total, SPM has 1,000 employees.